When
and how did you first hear about AV? And what made you decide to come
here?

I heard first about Auroville
in 1976 from a friend who had visited here. His stories about planting
trees and greenbelt communities in AV sounded very interesting although
very far from my reality at that time. I came myself in 1984 for the first
time and stayed 3 weeks. I did not see much, but I liked the general spirit
and that everybody was working quite hard. From what I could see there
were lots of "strange" things going on (neutrals, SAS etc) but I could
see the potential of this place and that made me come back two years later
in 1986.

To
make such a move from Europe to here must have been a culture shock,
at least.. How did it all begin? Was it hard to suddenly change and
start your life all over again?

Not only a culture shock,
but snakes, heat, dust and not the usual escape routes one had got used
to. I don't know how many times I asked myself during my first year "What
are you doing here????"
It was a real break for me, a break which was necessary and one which
I had to make for my own good.

At
the moment you are part of Aurelec Trust, Gateway Trust, Penta Services,
how do you manage? What made you decide to create Penta Services, and
how successful is it now? Is it progressing as you had envisioned?

Penta was created in 1993
to create a source of income so that we could come up for Ela's and my
maintenance. Basically, Penta is the same today and it's all it was supposed
to be. Penta also gives opportunities to other AVilians who work as freelancers,
mainly for translation work. Penta has developed the webpages for most
of the AV units who are on the internet today, and continues to develop
the technical skills and expertise to generate services in this line of
technology for Auroville.

Do
you feel that there is a growing competition in your field in AV? And
how do you see the future of AV communications?

No, there is no competition.
I am very happy that others have started to work in this field. Activities
like Transcript and AVnet are very important to propagate the use of this
technology and make people use it. I don't see a future for Auroville
without communication, lots more than today. I hope that more and more
people start to share their thoughts and feelings about the future of
this place.

We all dream about the future and we wish to know how it all will be
(better phone lines, free internet connection, fiber optic cables, etc)..
How do YOU see AV in, say, 10 years from now?

Oh, wow, that's a tough one.
In regard to the jobs I have right now, I hope that the technology is
in place to enable the community members to have access to all relevant
community information as well as to use this technology to participate
actively in the decision making processes, whichever they may be. And
that there is mandatory transparency about important issues and that people
will have realised that we all have to work hard for our goals.

What do you like to do in your free time? That is.., if you have
any with all this stuff going on..

Not very much time, but I
love to spend my free time with my family, daily walks around AV, my badminton,
cycling.